Speaking Chinese was never going to be easy. But take it from me, it’s a damn sight harder when you have half a dozen steel needles stuck in your face. “This will make you cleverer, make you think clearer,” insists Dr Yilan Shen as she drives another needle into my temple.

I have come to Dr Shen’s Herbal King clinic, off Sutton High Street in South London with a very specific request. Traditional Chinese medicine has been used for thousands of years to treat everything from constipation to baldness to infertility. My complaint, however, is rarer, and probably incurable: I need to learn Mandarin and time is short.

Dr Shen is sympathetic. She listens attentively to my symptoms: poor pronunciation, forgetfulness, the inability to distinguish between one tone and the next, the ever-looming danger that I shall insult someone deeply with the slip of a diphthong.

“Take off your shirt,” she says in English. “Xiexie,” I say. (I have found that lavish gratitude clears the conversational passages marvellously.)

“We will do acupuncture to improve comprehension, then massage. Soon you will speak very good Mandarin.”

As she prepares her needles, Dr Shen coaches me in the finer points of being ill in Chinese: “Tou teng...headache,” I repeat. “Duzi teng...stomachache.” The word for acupuncture comes from the Chinese for needle: zhen jiu At this point Dr Shen jabs a sterilised needle into the top of my head. It doesn’t hurt, exactly, yet it sends a peculiar and almost electric jolt through my scalp, a brief endorphin high.

Acupuncture is the branch of Chinese medicine that seeks to balance the body’s energy (qi), in order to treat and prevent disease. The dynamic forces of yin and yang in oriental philosophy are regulated by energy flowing along 14 main channels, or meridians, through the body. The flow of energy associated with a certain organ may be regulated by inserting needles or applying pressure at specific acupoints.

Chinese medicine was brought to Europe in the 17th century, but in recent years its popularity as an alternative medicine has exploded. There are now more than 3,000 Chinese medical practitioners in Britain, and about 2.5 million Britons spend £90 million annually on Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, massage and herbal medicine.

“People often come here as a last resort,” says Dr Shen. “I help them get a baby.”

A baby is actually the last thing I want at the moment but, again, a little Chinese politeness goes a long way. “Xiexie,” I say, hoping that her hand doesn’t accidentally slip into the fertility acupoint.

Dr Shen is now massaging my ears, very hard. “This is for your internal organs.” Again, the experience is a sort of pleasurable pain. My ears haven’t been treated this roughly since I played hooker for the 2nd XV in 1978.

Chinese medicine has been in use for at least 23 centuries. About a quarter of the world’s population use it, usually in conjunction with Western medicine. Nicole Kidman, Cherie Blair and Kate Moss are among them. It is intended to treat the whole body, rather than specific symptoms.

After half an hour of having my acupoints needled and pummelled I feel not cleverer exactly, but somehow brighter, a little more alert. I cannot claim to be speaking better Chinese, but perhaps because my ears have been given such a pounding I seem to hear it more acutely.

I have the correct phrase prepared, having spent the previous evening practising it in the bath: “Zhei zhong yao hen hao.” (“This kind of medicine is good.”) Dr Shen beams. “Xiexie,” she says. And for once I know exactly what she means.

Herbal King, 1a Cheam Road, Sutton, Surrey; 0208 643 4222

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